John Hawkwood
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Sir John Hawkwood (1320-1394) was an English mercenary or condottiere in the 14th century Italy. Jean Froissart knew him as Haccoude and Macchiavelli and Italians as Giovanni Acuto. Hawkwood served first the Pope and then various factions in Italy for over 30 years.
Image:Firenze.Duomo.Hawkwood.JPG
Hawkwood's youth is shrouded in tales and legends and it is unclear how he exactly became a soldier. According to the most accepted tales, he was a second son of a tanner in Sidle Hedingham in Essex and was apprenticed in London. Other tales also claim that he was a tailor before he became a soldier.
Hawkwood served in the English army in France in the first stages of the Hundred Years' War under Edward III. According to different traditions Hawkwood fought in the battles of Crécy and/or Poitiers but there is no direct evidence of either. Different traditions claim that the King or the Black Prince knighted him but there is no record of that - he might have just taken the noble title himself with the support of his soldiers. His service ended after the Treaty of Brétigny in 1360.
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To the life of mercenary
Hawkwood moved to Burgundy and joined the small mercenary companies that fought for money in France. Later he was part of the self-named Great Company that fought against Papal troops near Avignon.
In the beginning of the 1360s Hawkwood had risen to be commander of the White Company. In 1363 Hawkwood's men were part of the companies the marquis of Montferrato hired and lead over the Alps to fight a war against Milan. Afterwards Hawkwood and his troops remained in Italy.
Serving Italian factions
In the following years, White Company fought under many banners and switched sides many time. In 1364, they fought for Pisa against Florence. In 1369 Hawkwood fought for Perugia against the Papal forces. In 1370 he joined Bernabo Visconti in his war against alliance of cities including Pisa and Florence. In 1372 he fought for Visconti against his former master the Marquis of Monferrato. After that he resigned his command and the White Company moved to the service of the Pope for a time.
Under Hawkwood's command the company gained a good reputation and he became a popular mercenary commander. He gained a nickname l'acuto, "the keen one", which gave him his Italian name Giovanni Acuto. His success was varied, but he exploited the shifting allegiances and power politics of Italian factions for his own benefit.
Italian cities concentrated on trade and hired mercenaries instead of forming standing armies. Hawkwood often played his employers and their enemies against each other. He might have got a contract to fight in one side and then demand a payment for the other side in order not to attack them. He also could just change sides, keeping his original payment. Sometimes one party hired him so that he would not hire out the other side.
When Hawkwood needed money, he could threaten his employers with desertion or pillage if he was not paid. He bought estates in the Romagna and in Tuscany a castle at Montecchio Vesponi. Despite of all this, Hawkwood remained illiterate and had his contracts read to him and signed for him.
In 1375 when Hawkwood's company was fighting for the Pope against Florence, Florence made an agreement with him and paid him not to attack for three months.
In 1377, Hawkwood led the destruction of Cesena by mercenary armies, acting in the name of Pope Gregory XI. One tale claims that he had promised the people that they would be spared but cardinal Robert of Geneva ordered them all killed. Shortly after he switched allegiance to the anti-papal league and married Donnina Visconti, the illegitimate daughter of Bernabo Visconti, the Duke of Milan; they later had one son and two daughters. Sources disagree on whether this was Hawkwood's first marriage or not.
However, a quarrel with Visconti soon ended the allegiance, and Hawkwood signed another agreement with Florence. In 1381 Richard II of England appointed him as ambassador to the Roman Court.
In 1387 Hawkwood, fighting for Padova, fought Giovanni Ordelaffi from Forlì, fighting for Verona in the Battle of Castagnaro, and won.
Last years with Florence
In the 1390 Hawkwood became a commander-in-chief of the army of Florence in the war against the expansion of Gian Galeazzo Visconti of Milan. Hawkwood's army invaded Lombardy and was within ten miles of Milan before he had to retreat over Adige river. Later in the year forces under his command defended Florence and later defeated the Milanese force of Jacopo dal Verme. Eventually Visconti sued for peace. Contemporary opinion in Florence regarded Hawkwood as a savior of Florence's independence against Milanese expansion.
At that state Florence has given him citizenship and pension. He spent his latter years in a villa in the neighbourhood of Florence.
John Hawkwood died in Florence on March 16-17 1394. He was buried with state honours in the Duomo. Shortly afterwards, Richard II asked for his body to be returned to his native England. Hawkwood's son also moved to England where he became an Englishman and moved to Essex.
Memory and monuments
In 1436 the Florentines commissioned of Paolo Uccello a funerary monument, a fresco transferred on canvas, which still stands in the Duomo. Originally, the Florentines intended to erect a bronze statue, but the costs proved too high. Finally they settled for a monochrome fresco in terra verde, a color closest to the patina of bronze.
Posthumously Hawkwood gained a reputation of both brutality and chivalry. In Sidle Hedingham there is a Hawkwood memorial chapel and a Hawkwood Road. In Romagna there is a Strada Aguta.
Books
- Duccio Balestracci - Le armi i cavalli l'oro. Giovanni Acuto e i condottieri nell'Italia del Trecento, (Rome, 2003)
- Frances Stonor Saunders - Hawkwood: The Diabolical Englishman (2004).
- US edition: The Devil's Broker: Seeking Gold, God, and Glory in 14th Century Italy (2005)
- John Temple-Leader & Giuseppe Marcotti - Sir John Hawkwood (L'Acuto) Story of a Condottiere
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - The White Company (originally published in serial form in 1891) is loosely based on John Hawkwood and his exploits.
Other sources
- Barbara Tuchman - A Distant Mirror (Chap. 7)
- Kenneth Fowler - Sir John Hawkwood, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
- Stephen Cooper - An Unsung Villain: The Reputation of a Condottiere (History Today January 2006)
External links
- Sir John Hawkwood: Story of a Condottiere. By John Temple-Leader and Giuseppe Marcotti.Translated by Leader Scott. Published by T. Fisher Unwin (London) in 1889.de:John Hawkwood